Velvet Warning
by Protection 101
Summary: Hiram Lodge warns Betty that there is another mystery about to hit Riverdale. Betty has learned that keeping things from her closets friends to protect them only leads to her having to deal with the high anxiety ... that she's fearful that she would bring out her dark side too never be able come back to the light (not even with Veronica pleading with her too).


**The Yearly 365 Challenge**

 **Prompt #92 (Word) Forbearance**

 **Chapter One**

 **The Warning**

"I'm glad you decided to meet with me." He sighed as he looked up from where he sat on the bench in the center of the park. Tall trees surrounded the park table to protect it from the sun that was beating down.

She slipped onto the bench oppoist of his. "Why did you ask to see me?" She folded her hands ontop of the table as she looked into his chocolate brown iris. "Also why here?"

"I wanted to see you in public. I didn't want you to feel like I was threating you." Hiram sighed as he looked into the sea of blue green eyes of the seventeen year old girl across from him.

"I'm not going to keep this meeting from Veronica." Betty said in a firm voice.

"I don't want you to." Hiram replied. He sighed. "How is she?"

"She's still too hurt by your betrayal." Betty sighed. "She's not used to having one of her parents truly betray her trust like how you did." She looked Hiram straight in the eyes. "Were you even thinking of your daughter when you made the decision to destroy human beings."

Hiram sighed. "No. Even if I had thought of Veroncia … I would still have made very buisness decision that I made. I wanted money. I wanted power."

"You all ready had that Mr. Lodge. You were born into money and power." Betty's frown deepened.

"When you have to make a decision when you are an adult Betty … and you decide that the crooked way would be more helpful to your cause than being honest. Then come back to me with that statement." Hiram stiffly said.

Betty tightly nodded. She couldn't agrue that she would always make the _right_ decisions all of her life. After all in the past year and half alone …. she willing made the wrong decisions that seriously put her life in danger.

"Look I didn't come here to agrue the pros and cons of right and wrong decisions with you Betty." Hiram leaned forward. "I came to warn you."

Forbearance entered her soul. She was so used to this feeling that she's not surprised when it hit her any longer. She looked calmly into the eyes of Veronica's father. "All right what's the warning?" She was prepared for underlining threats to be coming from his mouth. It truly wouldn't surprise her one bit. After all the town of Riverdale was no longer the innoncent town that it used to be. The darkness has come to the town of Pep.

"Through my connections with the Serpents." Hiram saw the blonde teenager stiffen up. "There is a rumor spreading in the underworld that someone wants to start something amiss in Riverdale."

"What is new." Betty sighed. "They need to take a number." Her eyes narrowed at the elder Lodge. "Why are you telling me this? After all its not usual a adult would get a teenager involved in illegal happenings. Espeically a clean cut teenager as I am." She folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"Earlier you asked if I thought of my daughter when I decided to steal from others." Hiram steadily looked into the blonde's eyes. "I said I wasn't. But I am now. I know that you are very important to Veronica. If I know that someone may be a threat towards you Betty then I will do everything in my power to protect you."

"What about Archie?" Betty demanded in a hot voice.

"Archie Andrews is in no danger." Hiram snorted. "Trust me on this fact."

"You have to protect Archie if he's in danger." Betty demanded low in her throat.

Hiram sighed. "Fine." He didn't like the ginger haired teenage boy that his daughter currently was sleeping with. But he knew his daughter very well. He knew that Archie wasn't even close to special place in Veronica's heart and soul. No that place firmly remains with Betty.

"I will also of course protect Jughead and Kevin. Your family also." Hiram replied before Betty could speak.

"Thank you." Betty replied. "Are we done. Or do you have anything else for me?"

"We are done. Thank you for meeting with me." Hiram sighed.

"Thank you for the warning." Betty replid as she slipped from the bench. She nodded one more time and turned and walked across the grass. It was time to meet up with her friends. She needed to inform them that they had another mystery on their hands. She was going to take the lessons that she learned when Svern was threating her …. she wasn't going to keep anything from her friends ever again when it came to her safety.

 **Author's Notes:**

 **The couples are Bughead and Varchie at the start of this story.**

 **But the end couples will be different. I'm not going to say whom the end couples will be here … because that won't be made clear until perhaps in the middle of the story.**

 **The Core Four will finally be working together on solving a mystery. Betty has learned her lesson with the black hood on keeping quiet whenever she is being threatened.**

 **Archie is going to be important to the story. But he's not a main character … that's why I didn't put his name in the character listing in the summary.**


End file.
